Union Jack Chest

This was probably the most challenging project 

I have done . .  ever!

This chest belongs to my son and his husband.

They wanted it painted like the Union Jack flag.

Well, I had never attempted anything like this

before but they were excited and gave me the 

confidence that this could work out beautifully.

In this picture you can see the gold detail but

what you can't see is the indentation that these

gold designs have.  This now created a new

problem in painting a nice smooth flag.

I proceeded to fill in the indentations with

plaster and with a lot of sanding we 

achieved a pretty smooth finish.

This took a few evenings for me to finish.

The guys dug right into the paint and 

I sat back and encouraged them.

We started with a few coats of 

Anne Sloan's chalkpaint, 'Old White'.

Isn't this work room great?

We actually knocked out the adjoining

bedroom (on the left) where I store all my 

projects and I paint in the storage room.

It didn't take Craig very long to do the 

measurements and then the fun began.

Here the guys are using 'Emporer's Silk'.

Another night to add 'Napoleonic Blue'.

She was so pretty sitting there.

To make sure everything looked great before it left for

its new home, we brought it upstairs to see what

she looked like in the real light.

Here we are just adjusting some of the dark wax

with some clear wax.  

A glass of wine before dinner is good also. 

We did just a little distressing around the edges.

The guys didn't want the flag lines to be too 

distressed but rather a sharp line, so we had

to make sure we didn't over distress in other areas.

Aren't these just the cutest knobs!

They purchased them at Interiors to Inspire,

right here in Calgary.

Here you can really see the brush strokes.

Like Anne Sloan says, brush strokes add

character and this chest has that for sure!

Off to your new home now.

I hope I find a chest like this of my own

that I can perhaps re-do and keep for myself.

~ till later,

Bonny

Weekend at Home

On a little happier note post . . . wait, I guess this post is all about how I spent this last weekend and it wasn’t all that happy, but we did have a few laughs and some tears again.  But I did manage to get a few odds and ends done with projects.  So, with that said, my husband was diagnosed with Shingles on Thursday, the 10^th.  That was the teary part.  We spent a very quiet weekend and it’s allowed me to catch up on a lot of stuff inside.  Greg said I should go do something like go to the mall, that I shouldn't have to spend a lovely weekend indoors just because he was sick. But I’m just not that person to leave my itchy, aching husband home alone while I say, “I’m outta here for a bit”.

So here’s what I did this weekend:

Bunnies are getting a make-over in time for Easter.  Now that I’ve removed all their fuzzy gross hair I’m replacing their skin with fabric.  I'll post those pics at Easter.  I think they are cute, Greg's not so sure about the whole ordeal as he sees we modge podge fabric onto styrofoam bunnies. I sit on the floor in the family room with all my tools in front of me on our huge coffee table.  Greg & I sit downstairs and watch TV as his comfy man chair is down there.  It just doesn’t match in the living room upstairs (sad face). Here's the before pics.

This little cabinet now has some lining.  I used pretty wrapping paper from a gift from my mom.  There are doors that go in those grooves in front and I’m working on covering them but I’ve hit a road block in just what to do.  

Yes, I'm showing off my cute clay tags in this photo.  

You can add them to anything such as I did on this candle jar 

that I covered in paper.

This is the cutest jewelry box I seen in a long time.  I covered up the old dark brown wood with Old White chalk paint.  That color is my favorite!  Then I lined the drawers with pretty scrap booking paper.  I have one regret though.  I should’ve wiped the drawer pulls after painting them.  I may use paint remover yet to do that.

Craig and Luke are using my work room to do a project of their own.  I can hardly wait to see it finished.  It will be so cool in their new home they purchased.  They want to have it done by end of March.  I promised them I'd do a few touch-ups on it before they return to finish it.

I have given this rocking chair a little paint as well.  Underneath is a dark blue color and that made it look old and dumpy.  I’m not sure if I’m 100% satisfied with the results but it is shabby-chic.  It’s armless and a bit smaller than most rocking chairs.  If I don’t sell it as is, I might just change it up again but who knows.

 Still no word this week on the results of my kidney match tests I did on February 22^nd.  It’s definitely been a few hard weeks.  Lots of tears but there’s always a few laughs too along the way.  Greg has not lost his sense of humour either thru all this.  When we decided to go for a short drive to get out of the house and get a coffee, Greg stood in the entrance with a look of pain on his face and a little slumped to one side, the side that is so sore with Shingles.  I said, “How are you hon, you really want to go?”  He gave 2 thumbs up and a silly grin, “I’m excellent, never been better!”  We both laughed, then teared up at all the luck we were having lately, knowing we were both lying and we looked like crap but didn’t care and left to get a coffee.  The drive was short but it was good to get out for a few minutes.

Talk to you all later,

~ Bonny

Why

Tears and Fears and Tests

I’m sad that over this last year I have not dedicated time at night to diarize what has gone on in our world of doctors and specialists for Greg.  After stating on my Facebook page about starting this year by journaling, I have already failed that.  But today is a new day and it’s not too late.  I’m going to keep a diary about this journey Greg and I are on.  What changed?  Life changed and will continue to change.  Writing about it helps to release feelings and tension.  Whether I choose to re-visit the year later, is up to me.  My sister and I went to clean our parents’ home in a lodge.  It was overdue for a cleaning.  We found my mom’s journals on a bottom shelf.  There were quite a few.  But it inspired me to write my stories for myself.  Not the ‘I got up today and made coffee’ stories, but the things that really are heavy on our hearts, happy or sad,  things that did or might change our lives.

On Monday, Feb. 22 life did change . . . that particular morning I left our house after kissing our puppy and hugging him as he lay on the sofa very weak and very sick.  I was to leave shortly to go to the Foothills hospital to go thru a series of tests to see if my kidneys were strong and healthy, healthy enough to give one to my husband.  It was a bitter sweet morning.  I cried because my puppy was probably dying and I had to leave him, but I had to leave to see if I could give my husband a better life.  It was a horrible feeling to leave my husband at home with a sad heart along with our puppy.  We had noticed on Friday that “Meeka” was beginning to get very lethargic.  On Saturday morning we had a vet appointment.  Meeka was diagnosed with a blood disease.  A blood disease that very much resembled Greg’s disease.  How could this be?  This was crazy.  The timing is just unbelievable.  The coincidence that he also has a blood disease is just incomprehensible.  We chose to take Meeka home and give him 2 drugs.  One would build red blood cells and one would kill the bad blood cells that were killing the red blood cells.  He became worse and worse.  We carried him out to go pee and carried him back in.  He wasn’t eating and not sleeping well.  He began a rough cough too.  His eyes were very yellow.  On Monday, after I left for my appointment, Greg took Meeka back to the vet to see if there was anything they could do to get him to perhaps eat.  When the vet saw him she said he was loosing a lot of blood, thus the yellow eyes.  Greg left him there for the day to see what, if anything, they could do.  I got home at 4:00 and at 5:00 we returned to the vet clinic and said our goodbyes to Meeka.  He was so weak that he could not hold his head up.  When he heard Greg and my voice his breathing became more laboured.  He knew we were there but he couldn’t lift his head or wag his tail.  We kissed him, cried, and said goodbye to our little “buddy bear”.  He was always there for Greg, together with him everyday, especially since we moved back to Alberta and Greg worked from home.

Talk about emotional.  And to go back a bit . . . I’ve walked thru this storm with Greg and told him the stories that he didn’t remember about being in the hospital.  To possibly have the opportunity of giving him a better life was not even a decision I had to think about.  Of course I was scared saying yes, I think that’s just being human.  It does involve surgery after all.  If I don’t make the grade then there are other options, but we won’t go into that right now. 

The doctors and specialist that he has seen over this past year is overwhelming.  The lab work is constant.  Each day is different in how he may be feeling.  We take the good days and go with it and he rests on the bad days. 

I’m not sure when I will hear the results from my tests.  If it’s a ‘thumbs up’, we wait for the doctors to decide when Greg should be given another kidney.  His kidneys have to be functioning at a certain % before they will go forward.  He will then have 3 kidneys as they do not remove any.  He would be given the lesser of mine, leaving me with the better one. 

I still cannot believe the timing of all that has happened this last week and the coincidence of loosing our puppy and how. 

So I will be here again, shortly I assume, with the results and the next step in our life.

~Bonny